First Term: Lesson 4 - Family Cakes

The first recipe is a Sticky Prune and Date Cake. This is another melted cake mixture. Delia melts butter, the dried fruits, water and 300g of condensed milk.  Up to the boil and let it simmer for about 3 minutes. Giving it a stir every now and then to prevent the mixture from catching. Take it off the heat and whilst its cooling sift the flours. Wholemeal flour this time and plain flour. After sifting the wholemeal bran is left in the sieve, just add it to the rest. Salt and bicarbonate of soda are added.  These ingredients are added to the cooled, melted mixture. Then give everything a really good mix.  Lastly, mix in a rounded tablespoon of chunky marmalade.

This time we are using a 20cm deep round loose based cake tin with a base liner as before. But because the cooking time is longer we are also using a side liner which helps to protect the cake and stop the mixture from sticking to the sides of the tin.  Spoon the mixture into the tin and smooth out the top with a bake of a tablespoon.  Bake the cake on a low shelf in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 50 minutes. Let the cake cool in the for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a cooling rack.  When the cake is completed cold, gently heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of chunky marmalade with 1/2 tablespoon of water and brush it over. This is a very moist, very sticky cake with a dark toffee flavour.  It keeps beautifully stored in air tight tin.

The lesson continues with a stickiness theme - a Traditional Oatmeal Parkin - another melted mixture. Delia uses an 18cm loose based tin, and this time a pleated parchment liner as the cake can be stored in it later. The utter charm of Parkin is it keeps stored in a tin and goes on getting stickier. Delia finishes with a recipe for Apricot Oat Slices which has always had a huge following. They are incredibly easy to make. Delia shows our Oblong Tin which is very useful for baking and its own specially cut liner which fits perfectly.